My oh my how summer has flown by.  My wife Indira and I spent the month of July in Maui with our daughter and grandchildren.  I have not been able to get back in the classroom to prepare it for this coming year as the summer programs are still going on at Hillside.  But, be assured I will have it ready by the Back to School Bash.  I look forward to meeting the children and families.

By now, for my new students, you should have received  your welcome packets from Hillside and I am getting ready to send out my own personal welcome letter.

I am so excited to hear that we will have an art teacher, and will be offering Sign Language this year in addition to Spanish.

Our class mascots, Puff the Bearded Dragon, and Bubba the Python, have been summering with Laina Brown’s family.  I visited them  and they both seemed excited about being back in the classroom with this years students, and seeing their old friends from last year..

Decoupage, do not attempt this by yourself I quickly learned.
In reading we read What I Want?  In science our lesson was on Eggs, and Chicks.  In math we did lesson 13-5.
A good part of our day was taken up with our craft for Mother’s Day.  I learned a lot.  Make note to self – Get a parent volunteer, if you can, to help.  But it was well worth it I think.
We had Laina join our IXL 500 club today.  Way to go Laina!  Treats for all the girls.  Come on boys!

Mr.  M

Today in reading we read Feelings.  We again returned to the computer lab for an extensive Explode the Code lesson and practice.  I will begin to use a set time period for computer lab every Tuesday and Thursday.  This does not mean the children should not practice at home from time to time.  We will also do some IXL math on occasion int the lab.  Kids had PE today.  We celebrated Laina once again in achieving 10% proficiency, and two hours on IXL math.

Since nature has not been cooperating with finding land snails outside I have thrown a lesson or two on plants into our science block of time.  Today we talked about plants and what they need to grow.  We watched a wonderful video made for kids demonstrated the plant cycle from seed to fruit or flowers.
In the classroom we will create our own hydro garden and see if we can gleans
row lima beans.  More than a couple kids said yuck.  Each one has created a garden environment, and tomorrow we will plant our seeds.  As in keeping with science and experimentation, we will also try to grow three of our plants without one on the critical components plants need to grow – sun, water, and oxygen.  So we will plant one seed without benefit of sun,  one without water, and one without oxygen.  A poll of the children ‘s thoughts on the experiment is as follows:

• 5 out of 9 children think that you cannot grow plants in a bag, PERIOD.

• 7 out of 9 think you need soil to grow plants.
• 7 out of 9 think the seed that is deprived of oxygen will NOT grow
• 8 out of 9 think the seed deprived of sun will NOT grow
• 7 out of 9 think the seed deprived of water will NOT grow.

Mr.  M